How to share code between Indicator and Strategy

[Hans B]

Hi,

In my coding I have several functions (eg SaveChart) and constants (eg Enums) that I would like to use in both Indicators and Strategies. I've tried putting them in either of the UserDefinedMethods.cs in \Indicator or \Strategy folder and adding "using NinjaTrader.Indicator; using NinjaTrader.Strategy;" in my Indicators and Strategies but this doesn't seem to work.

To bypass the problem I replicate my code in both \Indicator and \Strategy UserDefinedMethods.cs , but having to do everything double creates a risk of missing changes and is against the "Single Point of Definition" principle I like to maintain in my coding.

What I think I'm really looking for is some kind of old fashioned %include that would insert my common code in both the UserDefinedMethods.cs - but I have no clue how to achieve this (BTW: did I already mention I'm not a C# expert ).

I'm aware this is not the support NT provides, but maybe other developers have encountered a similar issue and can help me forward.

Thanks,
Hans

[bukkan]

just create a namespace of your own, like

namespace MyNamespace
{
    public enum MyEnum
    {
        Hello,
        World
    }

}

declare the same in the indicator or stategy like,

using MyNamespace;

[Hans B]

Thanks bukkan - tried it & works

Next steps are variables and functions

Depending on the instrument type I'm setting 4 variables with particular timings for that market (opening range, trading range). The function is called during Initialize(). Something like this: (I live in Belgium, so the timings are CET)

switch ( Instrument.MasterInstrument.Name )
{
	case "ES"	: { my_sORB = "15:30"; my_sORE = "15:59"; my_sTRB = "14:30"; my_sTRE = "22:00"; break; }
	case "FDAX"	: { my_sORB = "07:50"; my_sORE = "08:29"; my_sTRB = "08:00"; my_sTRE = "19:00"; break; }
}

... and then later one ...

my_dtORB = DateTime.Parse( my_sORB );		// return value
my_dtORE = DateTime.Parse( my_sORE );		// return value
my_dtTRB = DateTime.Parse( my_sTRB );		// return value
my_dtTRE = DateTime.Parse( my_sTRE );		// return value

For variables I've been trying with public static variables, however I can't use them directly in my indicators. Being global I would expect to be able to access them via "my_dtORB", but seems I need all vars to be referenced as "MyCommonCode.MyVariables.my_dtORB".
An alternative way is like this, but is cumbersome just to have 4 variables in my indicators and strategies and I would need to copy this in all indicators, something I'm trying to avoiding.

public DateTime  MyORB
{get { return MyCommonCode.MyVariables.my_dtORB; } set { my_dtORB = value; } }

For my functions I also have to prefix them with the name of the public class I put them in ( "MyUtils.fnGetTradingHours()" ). For functions I rarely use this is not a big problem, however for a rounding function or a display function this clutters my code a bit too much to my liking.

Again thanks for any help from the group.

[koganam]

Unfortunately, that is one of the things about OOP, and actually it is a good thing, because it removes ambiguity. If you really do not want to reference the entities by their fully qualified path name, you can always use derived or inherited classes. I actually find those harder to debug, because their logic is just harder to keep track of.